Big Data Analytics on Aged Care's Client Base

“We’re creating an opportunity that everyone in industry can buy into, knowing that if you don’t, your competitor probably will,”

Aged care services in the increasingly competitive marketing environment of increased consumer choice are being offered the opportunity to know more about their potential targets from detailed big data analytics.

Philippa Lewis, founder of aged care health and technology companies Sanicare and Simavita, now runs Elementum and has linked up with leading data analytics firm Quantium to undertake and sell an in-depth analysis of the 60-plus age group broken into five-year segments.

Despite their differing social, economic, health and lifestyle experiences, Quantium has not previously micro-analysed the 65-plus segment in the same way it does othercohorts as there has been no commercial demand for such detail.

Quantium’s access to and analysis of billions of consumer transactions in the retail, banking, online and telecommunications sectors can enable detailed consumer profiles of potential aged care customers by location down to suburb and street to provide and plan services for them.

Philippa Lewis and Tim Trumper from Quantium are holding briefing sessions around Australia to discuss the benefits of such commercial intelligence to the aged care sector.

“The objective is to brief in the aged care industry to show them the depth of granular data available and encourage the formation of a buying syndicate of at least 20 to 30 to jointly fund the data analysis for a phase one report” Ms Lewis told AAA.

Providers can then decide on other data they may wish to examine, she said.

“If you’re committing to major investment strategies and infrastructure projects, you want the most information you can get on which to go ahead.

“We’re creating an opportunity that everyone in industry can buy into, knowing that if you don’t, your competitor probably will,” Ms Lewis said.

The briefings are already creating interest.

In Adelaide last week, around 30 people attended a briefing, including the representatives of the Economic Development Board of SA, which is developing a blueprint for an ageing economy.

It included board member Mike Rungie, who is the former long serving head of SA aged care provider ACH Group where he was an industry leader in strategic thinking and innovation.

“Aged Care providers have a passion for serving their customers well, but struggle to predict how their customers will change, and therefore what the providers should be developing and letting go of,” Mr Rungie told AAA after the briefing.

“Quantium has invited us to know our customers through the data generated by how they live especially in the way they will make choices about their futures.

“This is the most significant aid to delivering on mission that I have seen for some time,” he said.

Summit Care CEO Cynthia Payne said the aged services industry was just coming on board to the big data analytics discussion and this initiative was “perfect timing.”

Similarly, CEO of Suncare Community Services in Queensland, Russell Mason said he saw the value.

“Using sophisticated and well-designed data sets and segmentation systems will enable us to augment our own research and insights with an exceptionally rich data set, Mr Mason told AAA.

“This ultimately means we will understand more intimately, and more importantly, we will be able to anticipate the changing needs of our current customer and ensure we have the right product and service available at the right time.”